DRAGA

With DRAGA (which means MY DARLING in Romanian), i try to present complex and moving story about the realities of Roma persons, encountered between 2015 and 2022 in Romania and Belgium. Through co-creation workshops, i try to sublimate the stories of people designated as “on the margins of society”. I seek to bring out the beauty and strength of those who are forced to build themselves apart. The systemic discrimination, called “antiziganism” faced by Roma communities* is so tenacious that it seems to prevent any other form of narrative. At the mere sound of «Roma child living in a slum», an image comes to mind. My wish is to tell another story and create, with the people concerned, a profusion of other images. You won't see the slums, poverty, dirt and dump. You won't see despair and dust You won't see weariness and anger All these things exist, in Pata-rât **and probably already in your imagination. You will then see a raw and intense poetry, a creative force. You will see these children reclaiming their images, their faces, their representations. You will see their likes and dislikes, their locations and their colors. All these things also exist, in Pata-rât and I hope now, in your imagination. DRAGA is composed of digital photographs, collagraphs made from materials collected in the neighborhoods, children's drawings or writings collected in notebooks. The diversity of forms of expression allows different and complementary readings, so many ways to celebrate, to give a place and a voice to those that we often see without looking. *The term “Roma” is used as a generic term and does not cover the diversity of communities on the field. ** Pata-Rât, is a marginalized area of Cluj -Napoca (Romania) where Roma communities have been evicted and forced to live for decades.